Building and running a business is challenging and can be hard work, but it can also be very rewarding.
We all do things for a reason. Running a business is no different. Here are 3 questions:
- Why do you run your business?
- What is your business philosophy?
- Does your business philosophy connect with your customers?
Of course, a business philosophy should aim for personal success and fulfilment, and providing for you and your family. However, it is important to balance your own wishes with a desire to deliver real value to your customers and clients. Furthermore, getting this balance right can be the key to long-term success where everyone wins. Too much focus on either your own needs or those of your customers upsets the balance and the business risks failure.
An honest and well-balanced business philosophy can also be a great marketing asset.
What is your business philosophy? Do you tell people?
My BSA philosophy
To explore this idea further, I think it is only fair to look at my own philosophy for BSA in terms of the 3 questions I pose above
1. Why do I run BSA?
To be honest, running BSA was unexpectedly thrust upon me back in 1986 following the sudden death of my father. I never took the decision to start a business. I literally woke up one day to find myself in charge!
The following few years were stressful I didn’t have a plan. I had a team to motivate and expenses to cover – not to mention a mortgage! In the end, I did the only thing I felt I could, I put my head down and got on with it! Although I was only too aware of the bills and wages that needed paying, my philosophy from the very start was that the best way to meet my own needs and obligations was to deliver the very best we could for our customers.
2. What is my business philosophy?
34 years later, we are still here so I guess we have been doing something right!
At its heart, my business philosophy is all about partnership. In my experience, simply supplying a service to a client at arm’s length works well as a one-off but is less effective when we are trying to build a longer-term relationship. Our aim is to engage with our clients to deliver real benefit – to improve your business. We can only do this if we properly understand a client’s own philosophy and objectives.
I am proud that we have been working with most of our clients for many years. A client relationship can be based on no more than proactively and intelligently hosting a website. With other clients, we are actively developing and implementing ongoing marketing communication programmes, including exploring, developing and advising on new ideas and opportunities.
We bring together our own experience and skillset to work in partnership with the knowledge and capabilities of our client. Getting the partnership right means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. My business philosophy is focussed on getting the partnership right.
We want to really help our clients, both in planning AND implementation. It is important that we help to make things happen, all as part of a bigger picture to drive and improve your business.
It is not about turnover. If a partnership is right, it is right, however modest or great it may be.
3. Does the BSA business philosophy connect with our customers?
In short, I hope so!
We recently did some customer research and, while the results highlighted some novel and valuable opinions, the core response does fit with my philosophy. Our clients see BSA as experts who effectively integrate this knowledge with the expertise of our clients to work together to deliver a better outcome for us both.
However, this led to another consideration: do we tell our prospective customers about our philosophy? I’m afraid to say that when we took a critical eye to our core marketing message on our website – we came up short. We had fallen into the classic marketing trap of discussing features rather than benefits!
I am a fan of the saying that ‘Every Day is a Schoolday’. No matter how much you know, there is always the opportunity to learn
Needless to say, we took the opportunity to make some changes.
Hopefully, our philosophy is becoming more apparent.
So what is your business philosophy?
So, what is your business philosophy? Does it effectively drive your business?
Might a partnership with BSA bring something to your party?
